KiOR Provides Operational Update on Columbus Facility

KiOR Provides Operational Update on Columbus Facility
Announces Conference Call on January 9, 2014 at 10:00 a.m. EST
PASADENA, Texas, Dec. 23, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- KiOR, Inc. (Nasdaq:KiOR),
provided today an update on the operations at its Columbus, Mississippi,
facility.
KiOR expects that, given current and anticipated operations through the
remainder of the year, the Columbus facility will produce approximately
410,000 gallons of fuel during the fourth quarter of 2013, bringing full year
production total from the facility to approximately 920,000 gallons. The ratio
between gasoline, diesel and fuel oil expected to be produced during the year
is approximately 35% gasoline, 40% diesel, and 25% fuel oil.
"We are pleased that we expect to reach our best quarter in terms of
production volumes from the Columbus facility," said Fred Cannon, President
and CEO. "It continues to demonstrate the progress that we have made in
bringing the world's first cellulosic gasoline and diesel commercial facility
to steady-state operations."
"Despite our accomplishments to date, we still have a lot of work to do to
bring the Columbus facility towards target throughput, yield and financial
performance levels.The financial performance of the facility was also
negatively impacted by the temporarily depressed pricing for RINs caused by
proposed 2014 renewable volume obligation rulemaking by the USEPA."
"Given these factors," Mr. Cannon continued, "we believe that, from both an
operational and financial perspective, we need to focus our execution on three
simple goals: first, bringing the Columbus facility to the levels of
operational and financial performance that we expected when we designed that
facility over three years ago; second, continuing to develop our technology so
that we can improve our yields and process improvements both at Columbus and
at future facilities; and third, aggressively managing our cost without
sacrificing our long term goals.To that end, from now through the end of the
first quarter of 2014, we expect that our efforts at Columbus will be focused
on implementing a series of mechanical improvements to the facility rather
than production volumes.We plan to operate the facility on a limited campaign
basis only to verify the expected impact of improvements we intend to
implement.In addition, we continue to see encouraging developments in our
catalyst and process development efforts that we believe will continue to
drive improvement in yields and overall plant economics.
"With these short-term steps, we are staying true to the KiOR business
strategy that we outlined at the time of the initial public offering:bring
the operations at the Columbus facility to expected production and economic
performance, and allow that performance to serve as the foundation for the
development of future KiOR facilities that produce real hydrocarbon fuels
competitive with traditional fuels without subsidy -- whether through a second
Columbus facility or larger, standard scale commercial production facilities,"
Mr. Cannon concluded.
"The uncertainty caused by USEPA's proposed 2014 RVO rulemaking has already
made and will continue to make our expansion financing efforts more
challenging, but we believe that once USEPA adjusts the 2014 RVOs in a manner
consistent with the policy goals of the Renewable Fuel Standard, some of these
short term challenges will lessen.While our strategy is taking longer to
execute than we anticipated two years ago, we believe that successful
execution of our strategy will build a sustainable business that will deliver
long-term value to our shareholders."
Conference Call Information
A conference call has been scheduled for Thursday, January 9, 2014, at 10:00
a.m. Eastern Time (9:00 a.m. Central Time) by KiOR management to further
discuss the 2013 performance of its Columbus facility, the company's operating
objectives for 2014, general business conditions and related topics.
Participants may join the conference call by dialing (855) 580-0042 (for U.S.
and Canada) or (443) 616-2702 (International).The conference access code is
28868377 for all participants.To listen via live webcast, please visit the
Company's website: http://investor.kior.com/events.cfm.
An audio replay of the conference call will be available approximately two
hours after the conclusion of the call.The audio replay will remain available
for seven days until Thursday, January 16, 2014, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time
(10:59 p.m. Central Time) and can be accessed by dialing (855) 859-2056 (for
U.S. and Canada) or (404) 537-3406 (International).The conference call replay
access code is 28868377 for all participants.The replay will also be
available in the investors section of the Company's website approximately two
hours after conclusion of the call and remain available for approximately 90
calendar days.
About KiOR
KiOR, a global leader in cellulosic gasoline and diesel transportation fuels,
has developed a unique proprietary technology platform to convert abundant and
sustainable non-food biomass into fuels for use in vehicles on the road today.
KiOR's cellulosic fuels, which may be transported using existing distribution
networks, help ease dependence on foreign oil, reduce lifecycle greenhouse gas
emissions and create high-quality jobs and economic benefit across rural
communities.
KiOR's shares are traded on NASDAQ under the symbol "KiOR." For more
information, please visit www.KiOR.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This release contains "forward looking" statements within the meaning of the
Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and Section 21E of the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, regarding future results and
events, including, without limitation, statements about:our expected yields,
the ratio of gasoline to diesel to fuel oil we expect to produce, our
production volumes, the future performance of our Columbus facility, the
timing to bring our Columbus facility to target yields, the development of our
technology to improve yields and processes, our plans to manage our costs and
expenses, our catalyst and process development efforts and their potential
effects on our yields and overall plant economics, the effects USEPA
adjustments will have on the expansion of our financing efforts, the timing of
execution of our business strategy and our anticipated future technology
developments and operations. For this purpose, any statements contained herein
that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed forward looking
statements. Without limiting the foregoing, the words "believes,"
"anticipates," "plans," "expects," intends," "appears," "estimates,"
"projects," "would," "could," "should," "targets," and similar expressions are
also intended to identify forward looking statements. The forward looking
statements in this press release involve a number of important risks and
uncertainties, which could cause our actual future results to differ
significantly from the results discussed in the forward looking statements
contained in this press release. Such factors include our ability to raise the
additional capital we need in order to meet our liquidity needs and the timing
of such capital raise; the success of the technological improvements we are
developing and intend to implement at our Columbus facility in improving
yields and performance; the ability of our Columbus facility to produce
cellulosic hydrocarbon fuel on time, on a continuous and cost-efficient basis
and at expected yields; our ability to continuously operate our facilities
without delay or shutdowns; our ability to successfully commercialize our
cellulosic gasoline, diesel and fuel oil; our ability to effectively scale our
proprietary technology platform and process design; the cost of constructing,
operating and maintaining facilities necessary to produce our cellulosic
gasoline, diesel and fuel oil in commercial volumes; the ability of our
initial-scale commercial production facility, which we are in the process of
bringing to "steady state" operations, to satisfy the technical, commercial
and production requirements under offtake agreements relating to the sale of
cellulosic gasoline, diesel and fuel oil; market acceptance of our cellulosic
gasoline, diesel and fuel oil, and other factors discussed more fully in the
section entitled "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K as
filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on March
18, 2013, in the Company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the SEC on
November 12, 2013 and in the Company's other filings with the SEC. The "Risk
Factors" discussion in the filings listed above is incorporated by reference
in this press release. If any of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or
if our underlying assumptions prove to be incorrect, actual results, levels of
activity, performance or achievement may vary significantly from what we have
projected. We specifically disclaim any obligation to update these forward
looking statements in the future. These forward-looking statements should not
be relied upon as representing our estimates or views as of any date
subsequent to the date of this press release.
CONTACT: For investors:
Dan Richardson, Vice President, Finance
281-694-8744
Investor.relations@kior.com
For media:
Kate Perez, Director, Corporate Communications
& Public Relations
281-694-8831
Media@kior.com
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